Why do hormones matter

Hormones get a bad rap, but they are critical for every aspect of your health. They’re not just pesky annoyances that bug you during your period or when you’re transitioning into menopause. You actually need hormones to survive.

Hormones act like traffic controllers in the body, directing every system, organ, and even other hormones. They affect everything from our mood to our digestion to our skin and hair’s appearance. Because hormones impact our entire body’s functioning, when our hormones are out of balance in any way, it shows symptoms such as irregular or absent periods, fluctuating moods, unwanted hair loss or hair growth, dry, dull, or blemished skin, brain fog, light or heavy periods, vaginal dryness, chronic infections, hot flashes or night sweats, and low libido can all result from imbalanced hormones.

So the question becomes, what causes imbalanced hormones?

Well, in today’s modern world, almost everything! Things like interrupted and poor quality sleep, stress, processed food, sedentary living, and excessive screen time can all negatively impact your hormones.

But don’t worry! It’s not all doom and gloom. There are steps you can take to help support your hormonal health, reduce symptoms of PMS, hot flashes, acne, and feel like the glowing, vibrant person you are!

Our guide can serve as a tool for you to not only understand your body but also to take steps to support your hormonal health.

We’re going to go through the top reasons for hormonal imbalances and the simple steps you can take today to address each one.

Stress is a killer!

You might have heard that most doctor’s visits are due to stress, and most ailments are made worse by stress. There is no truer example of this than stress’ effects on our hormones.

Two of the primary hormones affected by stress are cortisol and adrenaline, often called the “stress hormones.” Stress triggers your body to release cortisol and adrenaline, which are produced by the adrenal glands—they ready the body to “fight or flight” by causing more blood to flow, increasing our heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing so we can get more oxygen and power.

Short term, this is fine. A little bit of stress here and there is healthy. Animals in the wild who have predators experience stress frequently, but as soon as their stress disappears, they come back to homeostasis. We humans can’t seem to shake our stress.

Chronic, constant stress will cause your body to pump out more and more cortisol, leading to weight gain, interrupted sleep, brain fog, low libido, appetite changes, decreased energy, and even depression and anxiety.

Have you ever noticed that your period is worse when you’re stressed out? Or maybe you skip a period? Or maybe it comes early? Even if we convince ourselves that our chronic stress is no biggie, the body doesn’t lie. It gives us signs that we need to actively manage stress

Eat to beat blood sugar

Have you ever wondered why so many women struggle with skipped periods, cysts, unwanted facial hair, or hair loss? Or how about why so many men struggle with building muscle and instead develop extreme amounts of belly fat and gynaecomastia (enlarged male breast tissue)? The culprit is often insulin resistance.

You might have heard of insulin resistance before. Every time we eat, our bodies produce insulin, a hormone necessary for breaking food down into glucose that we use for energy. This is a critical part of our survival; however, when we eat too much of the Indian processed diet and our body pumps out more and more insulin to keep up with the processed starches and sugars we eat, we eventually struggle with imbalanced blood sugar and insulin resistance.

Insulin has a huge effect on hormones like oestrogen and testosterone. When insulin is high, testosterone can rise and progesterone can drop, which can lead to symptoms such as infertility, excess facial hair in women, and acne.

Sustained high insulin levels can lead to insulin resistance, a primary cause of PCOS, a common hormonal condition in women that can cause infertility, weight gain etc.

No really, focus on getting better sleep

Most report poor quality sleep or not enough sleep; yet, no one seems to be doing anything about it. Sleep is incredibly important to our overall health and especially our hormonal health. While we sleep, there’s actually a lot of work going

Behind the scenes—our bodies do things like repair cells, fight inflammation, and restore hormone levels.

Shorter sleep duration and sleep loss can cause blood sugar dysregulation, reduced insulin sensitivity, higher levels of cortisol, and reduced satiety hormone (the hormone that tells you you’re full).Reduced sleep can also make it much more difficult to regulate weight and appetite.

Clean up your household and skincare products

Environmental exposures are one of the fundamental root causes of hormonal imbalances and many chronic diseases. Unfortunately, endocrine or hormone disruptors are present

in many everyday items, such as plastics, pesticides, and medicines. These disrupters quite literally disrupt normal hormone function and have been linked to health effects such as infertility, reduced ovulation and lactation, breast disease, breast cancer, endometriosis, and uterine fibroids.

We don’t mean to scare you. While environmental toxins are prevalent in this modern world, there are steps you can take to reduce your risk of harmful effects

If necessary, go easy on the workouts:

We’re all used to hearing that exercise is good for you, right? And it is—but like most things in life, too much can also be harmful. If your body is already stressed, adding too much high-intensity exercise can actually increase cortisol levels.

Everyone is different, of course, but for some people, even small amounts of high- intensity workouts, such as weightlifting, burpees, sprints, or pull-ups can trigger a stress response.

When it comes to working out, longer and harder isn’t always better and instead, you should aim for moderate-intensity workouts if you’re in the process of trying to balance your hormones. There is a lot you can do to stay active without adding too much stress to the body.

One common sign for menstruating people that exercise may be contributing too much stress in their body is amenorrhea, or the loss of their menstrual cycle. The combination of exercising too much and undereating is especially challenging for our hormones

Support your liver and your gut:

You might be thinking, what the heck do the gut and liver have to do with my hormones? The answer is a lot.

The liver is our body’s primary detoxification organ for our hormones. If the liver is overburdened with toxicants, physical damage, inflammation, infection, or other stressors, it can be difficult for the body to efficiently regulate hormones.

Sex hormones are intricately connected to gut and liver health in many ways. One way is through something called the estrobolome.6 The estrobolome is a collection of bacteria in your gut that are responsible for detoxifying and metabolising oestrogen. Oestrogen, in turn, affects weight, libido and mood, especially in women. Research is finding that an imbalanced estrobolome can lead to either excess or too-little levels of oestrogen in the body.

Why is this important? Because excess oestrogen can contribute to things like endometriosis, adenomyosis, ovarian cysts, uterine polyps and fibroids, oestrogen-sensitive cancers (like breast and uterine cancer), and PCOS (people think of this condition as one of high estrogen, but actually this is more a case of oestrogen dominance relative to low progesterone).

The bottom line: a healthy liver and gut are necessary for supporting optimal hormonal health.

Healthy hormones are just around the corner.